St. Landry democrat., 1887-12-31
Copyrighted. 1871


GOOD standing obliged his neighDor py
buving his wheat and was astonished to ma
himself suddenly outside the 1al'n' 'oA'
demned as "grain Speculation"
A Mennonite mechanic, OF lnventiVe
ability, was offered pecuniary help, ana lano
and buildings, to remove his large WORKS 70
i" = rritbeu town, where his receiving and ship
ming facilities would be much to his advan-
tage: but the keen, worldly people OF his
;" 1atSra, village bethought to detaln him
among them by whispering to his brethren
that he ought not at least to remove ,1or
hire" So the solemn, unshaved elders SAT
on his case and decided that he might
remove. BID. must not accept any subscrlp-
tions or contributions for doing SO, and so
held him captive till he died.
But harder than any was the case OF the
cood and modest bunker widow. Frederlca
Arnold. who went to Illinois to visit her SIS
ter. and. when about returning to Maryland,
stonned at the only "store'' in the Illinois
village to buy her child, little Hetty, aged
two, pair of shoes. ,,
No shoes in the shop would tit the chllo
but pair of red ones.
The mother beheld these red shoes with
an involuntary perception Of how they
brought out the complement OF the cnllo
bright cheeks and eyes and wheaton hair.
]. was too late to hesitate or reflect, tor the
stage was at the door.
So Hetty wore the red shoes back to Mary
land and the bunker zealots saw them.
Next meeting day the mother was expelled
from the sect.
Red shoes were the devils color.
Red shoes betokened sinful heart and
mining after the light colors which were as
aumed by the weeds in the farmers fields.
The little child grew up to be called by all,
in memory of its mothers penalty hee1y
Red Shoes.
She was a wandering child, her mother
feeling keenly the humiliation Of her reJec-
ton from fold in which all the Arnolds had
been born and kept, from that immemorlal
time when the first Germans, who were
Dunkers, sat down at Germantown, in Penn
svlyania: and conscious of her guilt, she
took the child's shoes off and put them in
her cedar chest and made no overtures
for recognition again among her ancestral
people.
Feeling that neglect, somehow, was her
portion in this life, Hetty wandered alone
up the mountain paths and along the flow
ing streams, seldom speaking to any other
child.
Sometimes a saucy country boy, as she
grew up to be graceful and blooming, would
call at her from the top of his wagon OF wood
as he came down the mountain:
"Halloo! Hetty Red ShoesW
Hetty, at this, would slip into the copses,
among the berry bushes, or hide in the wild
laurel tangles, and the memory of something
red would be recalled to her sense rather
than to her memory, and she would look
down at her bare, scratched feet and see
perhaps, the red line there OF the white hesh
scanned over her scars.
The instinct came to her that those feet
had not always been SO white, but when
and where had they been otherwise?
She asked her mother that question, who
answered absently:
SIT was when you wore the worlds red
Shoes"
OF Sundays and love-feast times, and on
baptism days, when the bunker converts
knelt at the margin Of the stream and were
dipped and received into fellowship, Hetty
saw her mother gazing at their buggies and
Dearborns as they filed down the road to
Brownsville with a lost, woeful look in her
eyes: and from every vehicle in which a
bunker family rode there would be intrusive
heads leaning outward, or looking back at
the widow Arnold, who long ago had bought
her child pair of red morocco shoes and
forgot to take them off on the Sabbath day,
and SO exposed her sin to the congregation.
'Why do love red, motherp" asked
Hetty, one day.
Because you have never had any shoes
since you wore the worlds red Ones"
''Why can't wear shoes"
"We are too poor"
'Where are the red shoes, mother?"
"Put away"
IF we couldn't afford any other shoes,
would it be wicked to wear them?"
1--WE can't afford them, Hetty. That day !
took you to meeting in the red shoes, it was
because had spent our money to get them,
and could buy no more"
"When am ! to have shoes, mamma"'
81 don't know. If you had never worn
any shoes we might be in the communion
AoW auu yOuuS lucu WOulu COiuc W SCC YOU
and you might marry one Of them, who
could earn money and dress you. But !
have given up hope, my child They treated
me so cruelty can't repent and 60 to the
meeting any more. My heart is hard and
here shall die alone and poor. God must
take care of you"
The impenitence of those who have no
other life than religion and are violently cast
out is proportionate to their former zeal.
Frederick Arnold neither made nor received
communications on the subject of her one
act of commission, but looked upon the
bunker faith as all she recognized. and that
she recognized only to hate it.
As bunker she had been barred out from
earth and Heaven. They had done it, and
inflicted outlawry upon her innocent child
She knew that it was done in accordance